No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Medical Legitimacy: Childbirth, Pluralism, and Professionalization in Nigeria's Faith-Based Aladura Birthing Homes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2023
Abstract
In the wake of the Aladura (prayer people) religious movement of the late 1920s, a site of childbirth that relied primarily on faith healing emerged in Nigeria under the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC). This practice of faith-based delivery remained informal until 1959 when it evolved into a permanent structure with a professional guild of midwives, codified practices, and trained personnel. This article explores the advent of CAC's faith-based maternity practice, notably its faith home midwifery school, and how the faith home transformed its identity from the informal realms of religious healing to a recognized religious entity that offered primary maternity care based on the principles of faith healing. By examining the professionalization of Aladura faith homes, I highlight questions of legitimacy allocation in postcolonial Africa and how CAC navigated this process by courting legitimacy from state-backed institutions and sociocultural frameworks.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Christ Apostolic Church, Facebook homepage, https://www.facebook.com/cacministry/posts/355338424660081/, Apr. 2015. Accessed 10 Nov. 2019; interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo, Ede, 27 Oct. 2020.
2 I use Faith Home to refer to CAC's faith-based midwifery training institution. As of 2021, the center's registered name is Faith Home, Childbirth, and Missionary Health Workers Training Center. Throughout this article, I refer to the training center as the faith home training center, faith home midwifery school, or Faith Home while I use faith homes to refer more broadly to the subsidiary CAC faith homes affiliated with the training center. This article focuses on the faith home midwifery school's evolution rather than that of the subsidiary faith homes that operate under it.
3 For more on the Aladura movement, see Peel, J. D. Y., Aladura: A Religious Movement Among the Yoruba (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Turner, H. W., History of an African Independent Church (Oxford, 1967), 8–34Google Scholar; Mohr, A., ‘Faith Tabernacle Congregation and the emergence of Pentecostalism in colonial Nigeria, 1910s-1941’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 43 (2013), 196–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 National Archives, Ibadan (NAI) OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola and the Faith Tabernacle otherwise known as the Aladura religious movement-operation of in Oyo Province’, 1932, 2.
5 For more information, see Schram, R., A History of the Nigerian Health Services (Ibadan, 1973), 101–41Google Scholar, 193–214.
6 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo; interview with Victoria Alabi, Ede, 17 Oct. 2020.
7 For some examples, see Hunt, N., A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo (Durham, NC, 1999)Google Scholar; Osseo-Asare, A., ‘Writing medical authority: the rise of literate healers in Ghana, 1930–70’, The Journal of African History, 67:1 (2016), 70–1Google Scholar; Flint, K., Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchanges, and Competition in South Africa, 1820–1948 (Athens, OH, 2008), 128–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughan, M., Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Stanford, 1991)Google Scholar; MacCormack, C., ‘Healthcare and the concept of legitimacy in Sierra Leone’, in Feierman, S. and Janzen, J. (eds.), The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley, 1992), 426–36Google Scholar; Fassin, D. and Fassin, E., ‘Traditional medicine and the stakes of legitimation in Senegal’, Social Science & Medicine, 27:4 (1988), 353–7CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
8 Vaughan, Curing their Ills, 24.
9 Fassin and Fassin, ‘Traditional medicine’, 353.
10 Some of these works include M. Jennings, ‘“A matter of vital importance”: the place of the medical mission in maternal and child healthcare in Tanganyika, 1919–39’ in D. Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (New York, 2006), 227–50; Thomas, L., Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction and the State in Kenya (Berkeley, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summers, C., ‘Intimate colonialisms: the imperial production of reproduction in Uganda, 1907–1925’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 16:4 (1991), 787–807CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual; Debby Gaitskell, ‘Getting close to the hearts of mothers: medical missionaries among African women and children in Johannesburg between the wars’, in V. Fildes, L. Marks, and H. Marland (eds.), Women and Children First: International Maternal and Infant Welfare 1870–1945 (New York, 1992); Cooper, B., Countless Blessings: A History of Childbirth and Reproduction in the Sahel (Bloomington, IN, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 See O. Williams, ‘A blur between the spiritual and the physical: birthing practices among the Igbo of Nigeria in the twentieth century’, in M. Delaporte and M. Martin (eds.), Sacred Inception: Reclaiming the Spirituality of Birth in the Modern World (Lanham, 2018); Ekanem, S. and Asira, A., ‘Religion and medicine in the 21st century Nigeria’, SOPHIA, 9:1 (2006), 56–61Google Scholar; Asare, M. and Danquah, S., ‘The African belief system and the patient's choice of treatment from existing health models: the case of Ghana’, Acta Psychopathol, 3:4 (2017), 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lado, L., Felicien, C., and Azetsop, J., ‘The social construction of the legitimacy of Christian healing in Abidjan’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 36:3 (2018), 334–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Peel, Aladura; Turner, A History of an African Independent Church.
13 Sackey, B., New Directions In Gender and Religion: The Changing Status of Women in African Independent Churches (Lanham, 2006)Google Scholar; Mukonyora, I., Wandering a Gendered Wilderness: Suffering and Healing in an African Initiated Church (New York, 2007)Google Scholar; Crumbley, D., Spirit, Structure, and Flesh: Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches among the Yoruba of Nigeria (Madison, 2008)Google Scholar; Mohr, ‘Faith Tabernacle Congregation’, 196–221.
14 Adetunji, J. A., ‘Church based obstetric care in a Yoruba community, Nigeria’, Social Science & Medicine, 35:9 (1992), 1171–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Crumbley briefly touches on the subject in Spirit, Structure, and Flesh, 38.
15 Various primary documents on the Aladura discuss these government concerns. See NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola and the Faith Tabernacle’, 3–27, 49; NAI OYO PROF 1/28, ‘Aladura Movement (Apostolic Church)’, 1932, 3–7; Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham (CRL) CMS ACC 716 F8, Archdeacon Dallimore, Lagos Diocese, ‘The prophetic movement in Ekiti and beyond’, in Church Missionary Outlook, Vol. 59 (London, 1932), 96–7, 182–3. See also Alokan, J., Christ Apostolic Church @ 90, 1918 – 2008 (Ile-Ife, 2010), 87, 213–20Google Scholar.
16 Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church.
17 J. Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, Thoughts of an Apostle: His Collected works and Teachings, M. Idowu (ed. and trans.), (Lagos, 2000).
18 See National Archives, Enugu (NAE) MINLOC 17/1/9, ‘Illnesses and its treatments’; NAE MINHEALTH 30/1/243, 17697, ‘Native Medicine’, 1939; Williams, ‘A Blur’; H. Fabrega Jr., ‘A commentary on African systems of medicine’, in P. Yoder (ed.), African Health and Healing Systems: Proceedings of a Symposium (Los Angeles, 1982), 237–52; Ityavyar, D., ‘Background to the development of health services in Nigeria’, Social Science and Medicine, 24:6 (1987), 487–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 See the works of P. A. Dopamu, ‘Yoruba magic and medicine’, in E. Dada Adelowo (ed.), Perspectives in Religious Studies, Vol. 1 (Ibadan, 2014), 106–12; T. Borokini and I. Lawal, ‘Traditional medicine practices among the Yoruba people of Nigeria: a historical perspective’, Journal of Medicinal Plants Studies, 2:6 (2014), 22–3; Adegbite, W., ‘Some features of language use in Yoruba traditional medicine’, African Languages and Cultures, 6:1 (1993), 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adepoju, J., ‘A study of health beliefs and practices of the Yoruba’, Journal of Cultural Diversity, 19:2 (2012), 36–43Google ScholarPubMed; Ray, B., ‘Aladura Christianity: a Yoruba religion’, Journal of Religion in Africa, 23:3 (1993), 266–8, 277–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 NAE MISF 257, Box 161, Adewale-Abayomi, F. A. M., ‘African traditional healing through Ohun Ife’, Orunmila, 2 (1986), 25–6Google Scholar.
21 Ibid., 25. See also Onabamiro, S., Why our Children Die: The Causes and Suggestions for Prevention of Infant Mortality in West Africa (London, 1949), 17–20Google Scholar, for some description of this process among the Yoruba.
22 See Ibid.
23 Onabamiro, Why our Children Die, 27.
24 Ibid.
25 See NAE MISF 257, Box 161, A. Oyesanya, ‘Ifa: the do it yourself for the beginners’, 8–9.
26 See University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UI), Colonial Office, Colonial Annual Reports, No. 1030, Nigeria, Reports for 1918 (London, 1920), 18; Wellcome Library, London (WL), Colonial Office, Nigeria. Southern Provinces. Annual Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year Ended 31st December 1918 (London, 1919), 29; UI, Colonial Office, Colonial Annual Reports, No. 1315, Nigeria, Reports for 1925 (London, 1926), 12; Turner, A History of an African Independent Church, 41; Oduntan, O., ‘Culture and colonial medicine: smallpox in Abeokuta, western Nigeria’, Social History of Medicine, 30:1 (2017), 48–70Google Scholar; Ohadike, D. C., ‘The influenza pandemic of 1918–19 and the spread of cassava cultivation on the lower Niger: a study in historical linkages’, The Journal of African History, 22:3 (1981), 379–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 383–6. See also Ochonu, M., ‘Conjoined to empire: the Great Depression and Nigeria’, African Economic History, 34 (2006), 103–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 See CRL M/Y/A3/1 1918–1933, ‘Iyi-Enu Medical Mission Report. 1919’, 2–3; Dallimore, ‘The prophetic movement’, 184. See also Schram, A History of the Nigerian Health Services, 101–41, 193–214.
28 Dallimore, ‘The prophetic movement’, 93–6; Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 72–9; and CRL H7/B/42/101, J. Ferguson,‘Africa, Nigeria. Christianity in interaction with Yoruba culture’,1977, 1–5.
29 Ibid.; Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola. For more on Babalola and CAC's theology, see CRL H7/B/42/101, CAC, ‘The Christ Apostolic Church, its history, beliefs and organization’, Ecumenical Review, 28:4 (1976), 418–24.
30 NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola’, 2.
31 Some of these cures, including raising a child from death, and healing the blind and crippled persons are recorded in Dallimore, ‘The prophetic movement’, 1; Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church, 36–8; Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 74–7.
32 Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 76.
33 Ibid.
34 Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church, 37.
35 NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola’, 3.
36 Pierce, T., ‘She will not be listened to in public: perceptions among the Yoruba of infertility and childlessness in women’, Reproductive Health Matters, 7:13 (1999), 69Google Scholar.
37 CRL H7/B/7/80, Turner, M., ‘Africa: mainly about women in the Church of the Lord’, The Harvest Field, 56:2 (1962), 8Google Scholar.
38 Cooper, Countless Blessings, 2, 5. Other works that have shed light on the centrality of women's reproduction in Africa include Johnson-Hanks, J., Uncertain Honor: Modern Motherhood in an African Crisis (Chicago, 2006)Google Scholar; Kaler, A., Running After Pills: Politics, Gender, and Contraception in Colonial Zimbabwe (Portsmouth, 2003)Google Scholar; Feldman-Savelsberg, P., Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon Grassfields (Ann Arbor, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 T. Pierce, ‘She will not be listened to’, 70–3; Dimka, R. A., Dein, S. L., ‘The work of a woman is to give birth to children: cultural constructions of infertility in Nigeria’, African Journal of Reproductive Health, 17:2 (2013), 102–17Google ScholarPubMed.
40 Onabamiro, Why our Children Die, 4–6. See also WL ANN REP WA28 NH5 N68 1922–1925, Colonial Office, Annual Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1922 (London, 1923), 19; WL ANN REP WA28 NH5 N68 1926–1928, Colonial Office, Annual Medical and Sanitary Report for the Year 1926 (London, 1927), 37, for infant mortality statistics for the 1920s.
41 Olusanya, P. O., ‘Reduced fertility and associated factors in the Western State of Nigeria’ in Adadevoh, B. K. (ed.), Subfertility and Infertility in Africa (Ibadan, 1974), 43–9Google Scholar.
42 See Mumo, P., ‘Western Christian interpretation of African traditional medicine: a case study of Akamba herbal medicine’, Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies, 8:1 (2018), 41–50Google Scholar; Abdullahi, A., ‘Trends and challenges of traditional medicine in Africa’, African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 8:5 (2011), 115–23Google ScholarPubMed; Asamoah-Gyadu, J. K., ‘Therapeutic strategies in African religions: health, herbal medicines and indigenous Christian spirituality’, Studies in World Christianity, 20:1 (2014), 70–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ifemesia, C., ‘The social and cultural impact of Christian missionaries on West Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries’, West African Religion, 12 (1972), 66–78Google Scholar.
43 Dallimore, ‘The prophetic movement’, 1; NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola’, 2; Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 8–9. For further readings on the nature of psalm usage in independent African churches, see D. Adamo, ‘The use of psalms in African indigenous churches in Nigeria’, in G. West and M. Dube (eds.), The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Leiden, 2000), 336–49.
44 Interview with E. O. T. Olorunwa, Lagos, 23 Mar. 2016.
45 Interview with Moses Olowe, Ibadan, 18 Nov. 2015; interview with Lydia Ajayi, Ofatedo, 18 Oct. 2020. Babalola's order of prayers for pregnant women, as outlined in his own writings, can be found in Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 9.
46 Dallimore, ‘The prophetic movement’, 2–3.
47 NAI OYO PROF 1/28, ‘Aladura Movement’, 1–3; NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola’, 59–60.
48 Ibid.
49 For more on this subject, see Peel, Aladura, 61–70, 105–13; Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church, 60–9.
50 See Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 22–3. The letter is reproduced in full on The Apostolic Church Nigeria (TACN) website: https://tacnlawna.org/the-great-schism-and-emergence-of-cac/#_ftn11. Accessed 26 Feb. 2021.
51 NAI, OYOPROF 1 662, The Faith Healer-Babalola, ‘Aladura Religious Movement’, 30.
52 NAI, OYOPROF 1 662, The Faith Healer-Babalola, 32–3.
53 Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 75.
54 Christ Apostolic Church, The Constitution and the Order of Service (Nigeria, n.d.), 42. CAC's publication in Ecumenical Review places the date of their first constitution at 1946. See CAC, ‘The Christ Apostolic Church’, 423.
55 Interview with M. A. Adeleye, Lagos, 2 July 2018; interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo.
56 Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 8–9.
57 CRL H7/B/51/2/55, ‘Extracts from Awon Adura Banuso’, 3; H7/B/42/124, ‘Africa Nigeria, recent developments in the healing concepts and activities of Aladura churches’, 5–6.
58 Interview with Esther Oluwafemi, Ibadan, 18 Nov. 2015; interview with Oluwaleye Ara, Lagos, 22 Mar. 2016; interview with Comfort Aluko, Ibadan, 20 Nov. 2015; interview with Victoria Ayobola, Ejigbo, 23 Jan. 2021; interview with M. A. Adeleye.
59 See Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 48–55.
60 Ibid.
61 See Babalola, Joseph Ayo Babalola, 2–37.
62 Ibid., 2–5, 7.
63 Ibid., 7.
64 Ibid., 13–14.
65 Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church, 353–4. See also 221, 234.
66 Ibid., 89. See also NAI OYO PROF 662, ‘The Faith Healer-Babalola’, 18, for threats of deportation.
67 See H7/B/42/124, ‘Africa Nigeria, recent developments’, 9.
68 Turner briefly discusses this Federation in a History of an African Independent Church, 70–1.
69 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo; interview with Victoria Alabi, Ede, 17 Oct. 2020.
70 Ibid.; interview with Oluwaleye Ara; interview with E. O. T. Olorunwa.
71 Interview with Moses Olowe.
72 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo; interview with Victoria Alabi; interview with Dele Akande, Ede, 16 Oct. 2020; interview with E. O. T. Olorunwa.
73 Alokan, Christ Apostolic Church, 354.
74 See NAI J/1/a, K/1/a, ‘Medical Policy in the Colonial Empire’, 2–4; NAE MINHEALTH 30/1/253, ‘Representations made to the Honorable, the Director on Medical Services during an interview with him at 12:45PM on 31/10/46, medical development in Nigeria’, 1946, 1–2.
75 Ibid., 2; NAI MH (FED)1/1, Medical Dept. Nigeria, ‘Report on welfare and antenatal’, 2–3; British National Archives, Kew (BNA) CO 847/9/5, ‘Status of Women in Africa, correspondence relating to the welfare of women in tropical Africa’, 2.
76 BNA CO 859/62/17, Birth Control West Africa, ‘Volume II Report of the Department of Medical Services, 1957’, 6–7.
77 Interview with Lydia Ajayi. For more information on Mama Ogunranti, see Crumbley, Spirit, Structure, and Flesh, 105–6.
78 Per the interviews with former matron Victoria Alabi and current matron Funmilola Awoyungbo, Faith Home midwives who were nurses were required to quit their employment in biomedical facilities prior to service in the Faith Home.
79 He died on the night that he commissioned CAC Faith Home, Ede on 26 July 1959, but the foundations that he laid for faith-based and holistic maternity care endured.
80 Victoria Alabi, Ajayi, and Awoyungbo all emphasize this spiritual element to their selection as matrons, which involved prayers and visions.
81 Interview with Victoria Alabi.
82 Interview with M. A. Adeleye.
83 Interview with Lydia Ajayi; interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo.
84 Interview with Comfort Aluko; interview with M. A. Adeleye.
85 Interview with M. A. Adeleye.
86 Ibid.
87 Interview with Victoria Alabi.
88 Interview with M. A. Adeleye.
89 Interview with Comfort Aluko.
90 Interview with M. A. Adeleye; interview with Lydia Ajayi; interview with Comfort Aluko; interview with Folashade Akande, Ede, 16 Oct. 2020.
91 Interview with Grace Abiala, Ede, 17 Jan. 2021.
92 Interview with Isaac Yemi, Ibadan, 18 Nov. 2015.
93 C. Annan and K. Opadeji, ‘75,000 Nigerian women die yearly from pregnancy problem’, Daily Times, 24 Sep. 1991, 2. See also WHO, World Health Day, Safe Motherhood 7 April 1998 (Geneva, 1998), 2; Mahler, H., ‘The safe motherhood initiative: a call to action’, Lancet, 21:1 (1987), 668–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adetunji, ‘Church-based obstetric care’, 1171–8.
94 ‘Treatment of the sick in churches: Aladuras warned’, Sunday Observer, 1 July 1973, 1.
95 S. Akinrinade, ‘The snarl of fortune: structural adjustment program brings mixed blessings to industries, others’, Newswatch, 29 Aug. 1988, 17–19; B. D. Abu, ‘A bog on the path: Babangida's well-laid social programs are frustrated by poor execution’, Newswatch, 29 Aug. 1988, 20–2.
96 ‘Patients ejected as nurses join strike’, Daily Times, 28 Dec. 1991, 1; ‘Doctors in Edo continue strike’, Daily Times, 27 Dec. 1991, 3; ‘The nurses’ strike’, Daily Times, 22 Feb. 1991, 14.
97 ‘Patients now wait for 3 months before getting treatment…as hospital lacks facilities’, Daily Times, 5 Mar. 1990, 4; ‘New deal for doctor’, Daily Times, 31 Oct. 1990, 14; ‘The quality of private medicine’, Daily Times, 4 Apr. 1981, 16.
98 Annan and Opadeji, ‘75,000 Nigerian women die yearly’, 2.
99 Interview with M. A. Adeleye.
100 Interview with Dr. Ajuwon, Ede, 20 Oct. 2020.
101 Interview with Lydia Ajayi.
102 Ibid.; interview with Oluwaleye Ara; interview with M. A. Adeleye.
103 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo.
104 These midwives include M. A. Adeleye, Lydia Ajayi, Comfort Aluko.
105 Ibid., interview with M. A. Adeleye; interview with Oluwaleye Ara.
106 Interview with Esther Oluwafemi; interview with Oluwaleye Ara; interview with Comfort Aluko; interview with M. A. Adeleye.
107 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo. It is not clear when this registration first occurred, but Osun State made provisions for registration under the State of Osun Registration of Private Hospitals and other Health Institutions Law of 2002. Before this provision, faith homes in Ede and elsewhere could register with Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health.
108 Interview with Funmilola Awoyungbo.
109 Christ Apostolic Church, Facebook Homepage. https://www.facebook.com/cacministry/posts/355338424660081/, Apr. 2015. Accessed 10 Nov. 2019.
110 Focus group session with thirty-five Faith Home attendees, Lagos, 23 Mar. 2016; focus group session with seven past and current faith home users, Ede, 2 Feb. 2021.
111 Focus group session with thirty-five Faith Home attendees.
112 G. Bankole, ‘CAC Faith Home Maternities records 65,792 births in one year’, CAC News, May 2019.
113 Interview with Lydia Ajayi.